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Here is your daily Oklahoma farm and ranch news update. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Clock is Ticking on COOL Retaliation- Michael Kelsey and Steve Dittmer Weigh in on the Senate's Decision to Make
 

 

As expected, the World Trade Organization (WTO) released their retaliation number against the United States over the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) law this past Monday morning. The WTO ruled that Canada and Mexico can retaliate against U.S. economy, as the U.S. COOL has been ruled to be out of compliance by the WTO.


There are agricultural groups that are urging the U.S. Senate to move quickly and repeal COOL once and for all. Other groups responded in saying that the WTO numbers were flawed. The reality is that those numbers are going to be used for retaliation against the U.S. in totaling over $1 billion annually. This includes over $780 million U.S. dollars from Canada and $227 million from Mexico.

Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association (OCA) Executive Vice President Michael Kelsey says there's no more time for negotiation. It's time for the U.S. Senate to respond to this very stiff punishment of a billion dollars of tariffs a year against the United States.

Kelsey is our guest on the Beef Buzz- click here to listen to his arguments for the Senate to stop dragging their feet and approve a repeal of mandatory COOL.


Meanwhile- another gentleman that also believes that the Senate is down to one choice- and one choice only- is Steve Dittmer.  Dittmer has been a writer down through the years for several livestock publications- and now has his own advocacy outfit called the American Agribusiness Foundation.

Dittmer has crusaded for repeal of COOL since its inception- and released this morning an "op-ed" that Senate has no more wiggle room on the COOL issue- that it will either allow the beef and pork industries (and the rest of the US economy) to be subjected to tariffs that will slow or stop the movement of our products into Canada and Mexico- or the Senate can agree with the position taken by the House back in June- and repeal COOL. 

You can read his arguments for the latter by clicking here.

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Mizzou and K-State Researchers Engineer Pigs Resistant to PRRS

 

Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) virus was first detected in the U.S. in 1987. Pigs that contract the disease have extreme difficulty reproducing, don't gain weight and have a high mortality rate. To date, no vaccine has been effective, and the disease costs North American farmers more than $660 million annually. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Missouri, Kansas State University, and Genus plc have bred pigs that are not harmed by the disease.


"Once inside the pigs, PRRS needs some help to spread; it gets that help from a protein called CD163," said Randall Prather, distinguished professor of animal sciences in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. "We were able to breed a litter of pigs that do not produce this protein, and as a result, the virus doesn't spread. When we exposed the pigs to PRRS, they did not get sick and continued to gain weight normally."


American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman applauded the announcement.


"Today's announcement of a health-enhanced pig able to resist the PRRS virus is a critical scientific breakthrough in hog farmers' battles against the disease and is a real game changer for the pork industry," Stallman said. "PRRS is an incurable viral disease that causes reproductive failure in sows, reduces growth of young pigs, and causes premature death in piglets; PRRS annually causes an estimated $664 million in lost productivity. Being able to fight this disease through advance genetic technologies will mean healthier animals, more efficient food production and more efficient risk management options for producers."

 

Click or tap here to read more about how researchers were able to make pigs that are resistant to this incurable and, up to now, untreatable disease.

Noble Foundation Researchers on the Receiving End of Federal Money to Research Switchgrass Growing In Marginal Soils

 

How do you grow healthier, hardier plants for livestock and people? One answer may lie in the relationship between naturally occurring, beneficial microbes and prairie grass commonly seen in the Great Plains.


Researchers at The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and the University of Oklahoma recently received a five-year, $11 million grant from the United States Department of Energy to study plant-microbe interactions in switchgrass.


The grant will enable co-principal investigators Kelly Craven, Ph.D., Michael Udvardi, Ph.D., Wolf Scheible, Ph.D., and Malay Saha, Ph.D., (all with the Noble Foundation), the group at LLNL, and principal investigator Mary Firestone, Ph.D., (UC Berkeley) to study soil microbial populations in and around switchgrass plants that grow well (or poorly) on nutritionally-depleted soils.

 

 

Click or tap here to read more about these microbes promote the prairie grass to grow in nutrient-deficient, marginal soils.

Dewey County Farmer Praises Benefits of Cover Crops and Soil Health During Wet and Dry Years

 

No-till crop production and cover crops have shown their benefits in protecting the soil and saving moisture in drought, but they have also shown their benefits in a wet year as well. Jimmy Emmons of Leedey, Oklahoma has seen multiple years of drought, then this year's wet year. In both cases, he has seen these concepts work on his farm.


"That's the great thing about a cover crop and soil health, you can infiltrate a lot more water," Emmons said.


In planting cover crops and using a no-till system, Emmons has been able to build organic matter in his fields. His latest data has shown they have been able to double their organic matter over the past two years. By increasing organic matter, he has been able to increase the water holding capacity of his soil. That allows more of the rain soak in and less of it to runoff. Emmons said this not only captures more water, but also improves the water quality downstream.

I also talked with Emmons about how to build organic matter.  Click or tap here to listen to our full interview. 

 

USDA Announces Strengthened Process Verified Program

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Monday announced improvements to strengthen the USDA Process Verified Program (PVP). For almost 20 years, AMS has administered the PVP to help agricultural suppliers differentiate their products in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The changes announced will build on that strong tradition by providing the public with even greater transparency and confidence in the "USDA Process Verified" shield.


"As consumers demand additional information about food products, more and more companies are turning to USDA's Process Verified Program (PVP) to effectively communicate about specific production practices and marketing claims," said Dr. Craig Morris, Deputy Administrator of the AMS Livestock, Poultry and Seed Program. "The changes announced today are part of our commitment to continuous improvement, ensuring consistency and providing consumers with even more information about exactly what PVP-audited marketing claims mean."


First, in order to ensure consistency, increase efficiency, and protect the integrity of the PVP, AMS moved the program to a single management structure that works across commodity programs. By providing uniform requirements and auditor procedures, this guarantees that the "USDA Process Verified" shield represents the same level of transparency and independent USDA verification regardless of the product.


Click or tap here to read more about the "USDA Process Verified" program. 

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"Farm to Fork: A Panoramic View of Agriculture" Returns in 2016 as MOOC Offering from OSU

 

For the second consecutive year, Bailey Norwood, professor in the department of agricultural economics for the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University, will be conducting an online journey connecting agricultural science and the food people eat.


This online journey is a Massive Open Online Course titled "Farm to Fork: A Panoramic View of Agriculture."


The 16-week course is conducted entirely online and is open to anyone. "Farm to Fork" focuses on topics from livestock-care techniques and the industrialization of agriculture to the effect of locally grown food on a community's economy and the role of politics and culture in food.  Click or tap here to read more about this course that features video lectures, readings and virtual farm tours.

This N That -Tulsa Farm Show Ready to Roll, Big Iron Wednesday and Steaks for Troops Fundraiser Coming Next Monday 

 

It's hard to believe- but another Tulsa Farm Show is upon us- and the 22nd annual edition of this great all indoor farm and ranch show kicks off tomorrow morning- and runs through Saturday afternoon.

Our booth at the 2015 Tulsa Farm Show will be at the same spot it has been for the last several years- just inside the main south entrance to the huge Expo Square building- just inside from the big Tulsa Driller. I hope you will stop by and say howdy- I'll be around much of Thursday and Friday.

We hope that we will be able to have Travis Meyer in our booth for a while on Thursday- Travis the News on 6 Weather Guy who also does a little ranching in Green Country like many of you do.

This coming Monday- National Livestock and the Oklahoma National Stockyards are planning their 6th Annual Steaks for Troops Auction. 

This coming Monday- December 14, 2015- around 11 AM- they will be stopping the final sale of 2015 at the Oklahoma National Stockyards for just a few minutes and will be auctioning off a calf- likely ten times or more- all in an effort to raise money for the All American Beef Battalion.

Click here for some details about last year's event- which raised over $62,000 for the all volunteer effort of saying thanks to troops returning from deployment by giving them a steak dinner and all the trimmings.

You can contact National Livestock at 800-310-0220 for more details about this upcoming fundraiser- and how you can contribute to this effort. (large or small- your donation counts)

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